Records Management: Overview

Back to Records Management

Records Management is the planning, controlling, directing, organizing, training, promoting and other managerial activities involving the life cycle of information, including creation, maintenance (use, storage, retrieval) and disposal, regardless of media.

As a Federal employee, at the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, employees will be creating and using Federal government records. They may be in many formats: paper, electronic, audio-visual, maps, etc. Records document the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations and other activities of the Agency.

There are rules governing the use and destruction of all Federal records. It is the employee's responsibility to protect Federal records in his or her custody, and there are legal implications for destroying records without the proper authority. Following good records management practices can benefit the Agency in many ways such as: improving access to information, saving time, space and money.

Keys to good filing practices are filing only what an employee needs to file, filing it in a way that facilitates access and disposition, and doing it consistently.

What is a Record?

Records include all books, papers, maps, photographs, machine readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics, made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the Government or because of the informational value in them.
(44 U.S.C. Chapter 33, Sec. 3301)